Agamemnon Burger

Big B calls from Oregon. This is maybe the tenth time he's called in the past week but each time it's been a bad time or maybe I just didn't want to talk about the weather. It's been on my mind, call Big B, but before I do he calls again. I answer, "Hey B, how are you?" "Hi Daniel. So how's the weather? How's the weather there in Rochester?" I tell him. "How are things with you?" I ask. "How's church?" I remembered about his church deal after he belted the bitch at work, who subsequently took him to court and sent him low and soul searching. "Oh, I'm through my anger management classes now. I still go to church." "Yea, I remember that was going well for you." "Yea." It sounded like he was depressed again. I thought of probing for some answers but instead kept it light, I couldn't get into it anyway. I stood, arms crossed, watching the boy play with legos as I spoke. I could tell he was eavesdropping. There's a standing policy with the boy to use normal adult language but explain the consequences if the boy chose to use such language. There is also a policy of justice so poor behavior doesn't go unchecked. It's changed his Papa as much as it has shaped him.

I catch the date, September 10. 6 years ago, 2001, I was asleep in Wyoming with my betrothed in a little cottage house scheduled to be married in 13 days. Everyone knows what happens the next morning by now. I had fierce beliefs then, they're still fierce but somehow more practical. At least in theory. I still think that youth and the beliefs of the impossible are essential to life.

I felt depressed. "Well, OK B, stay in touch. I'll make it out there sooner than later." We exchange goodbyes. I think of him, out there, probably like he thinks of me, out there. I could tell he wants some beers with the boys. I think of Jennifer and wonder where she is. That was my first real trip to the mountains, Big Sky, Montana. Where I first met Big B. The place where I learned to move forward and cover ground. To see all those views propelled by single human power. Over mountain passes, these are some of the strongest memories I have, Jennifer and making love on the pool table in drunken fits of escapology, climbing Lone peak by moonlight and the pure terror of what life could have been and the traps I felt I escaped. Waking through frost in August or freak storms that drop inches of snow and melt by midday. I left that place in the fog just after watching the OJ verdict delivered (lost ten bucks to that fuckin' killer), drove down to the valley and as I did watched the chip in the windshield slowly crack and spread from the upper driver's side, down and over the entire expanse. The remainder of the trip included a glare from that crack especially in the morning, driving east into the sun with two frightened cats on my lap.

_ _ _ _ sends a text, "I gotta take the dog to the vet. Wanna come?" I text back, "ok". I was out of the apartment early and had her car. "I'm almost done here. Call after." ":)" The dog had fleas. The doc poked her with inoculations, sold flea meds, collected fees and we left to find some food. Rochester, home of such fine cuisine as the garbage plate, a disaster of slop, we found a similar mess, got take out and looked for a park where the dogs could run and we could ponder our mess. No park but we did find a church with a fine wide soccer field next to it. We stop, the dogs jump out and immediately scattered the resident geese to boisterous protest. The dog is kind of an asshole, not that he chooses to be, to be fair. We leave him to it and sit at the little cloister under a headless statue of the virgin. Vandals must have beheaded and smashed her fingers. I appreciate that they left it, broken as it was. I sucked down the slop and ran the field like I meant it. The dogs followed now that the geese were appropriately quarantined to center pond, beyond the reach of convenient harassment. No sign of the missing parts anywhere on the grounds. I felt compelled to at least look, it was catholic. The poverty of our heritage, drenched as it is in wealth and scandal and the most stunning art, the kind that keeps me looking. That bitter fucker, we'll be in bed together someday. Life is too short not to feel the soft earth near, the dark soil of heritage.